Despite projections that it will take months to rebuild the primary, deep-draft port in Port au Prince, Haiti, construction and shipping industry representatives are confident they can pour loads of building materials and heavy equipment into the earthquake-damaged country.
“The port being destroyed won’t be a hindrance to getting equipment in there, not if you have an experienced heavy lift operator who knows what they are doing,” says Jerry Nagel, CEO of U.S. operations for Rickmers-Linie, Hamburg, Germany. “Most of the time we bring equipment to jobsites that aren’t on the main port. We’re moving in very primitive situations, so we are always engineering and improvising in order to land a piece of equipment.”